


scorpio rising

by sinta



Category: Wanna One (Band)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Mythology - Freeform, SORT OF i think, jihoon is a sort of shaman/seer/healer, magic au (sort of), woojin is a desert warrior
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2017-10-30
Packaged: 2019-01-26 17:19:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12562352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinta/pseuds/sinta
Summary: and the one person in the world who loves you isn't the one who you thought it would be—It's a little Romeo and Juliet in the way they're doomed; they're meant to be apart, but sometimes the stars align and there's nothing they can do.





	scorpio rising

**Author's Note:**

> hi all i'm SO GLAD this is finally out ;;; i've been working on this for abt a week nd i almost. dropped it at some point but i decided i loved it too much to let it die a slow death in my drafts so .. here it is.
> 
> also the mythology i used here is ph mythology bc i miss my history classes,, + pls be warned that i took a Lot of writing liberties when describing the deities nd stuff!!! so they're not exactly accurately portrayed. oh nd!!! the italicized quote in the summary is from a poem by richard siken.
> 
> this is messy (especially towards the end bc i was tired .... u can tell i wanted to jus have it posted) nd unbeta-ed, so all mistakes are mine!
> 
> special thanks to isabelle and rose for helping me! you're real troopers <3
> 
> EDIT: i forgot to mention that this au is heavily inspired (nd i mean Heavily ... there are lots of similarities - also doesn't help how it's one of the last fics i read before starting on this) w a final fantasy au fic i read abt 4 years ago! sooo o o... yea

_**gemini**  _

They meet in the aftermath of war.

Jihoon is on his knees in the middle of the field, blood and bones surrounding him as his hands are clasped in prayer. He utters tight-lipped devotions, praying for the dead, praying for their souls to reach the afterlife, to whichever Spirit would guide them home.

He hears footsteps, the sloshing messy mix of blood and dirt under heavy boots. Woojin collects souvenirs from the dead, flipping over bodies and taking whatever he could find. He's a survivor from the desert lands, Jihoon figures, coarse and careful in the way he moves. He was trained to kill and destroy, a warrior made to be the best even though only the best are offered up for sacrifice.

(Their art is built on the lives of their people. But where Jihoon heals and connects, Woojin breaks.)

Woojin comes to a stop in front of Jihoon, and Jihoon looks up.

Only Woojin speaks: "It's what they deserve."

A feeling travels up Jihoon's spine and makes a home in his chest. Woojin's eyes are dark and hateful, set on the aggression that flows in his veins. Jihoon bows his head down to keep praying, and Woojin continues to pick the battlefield apart with his bare hands.

(Jihoon prays for him that night, right before he sleeps; prays for Woojin's people and their faith, prays until his knees hurt and his mouth is dry from mumbling.

He can only hope the prayers reach them.)

,,,

The second time they meet, it's by the shore on the east coast.

Jihoon is in the shallow end of the ocean, the waves lapping at his ankles and silk robes dark with seawater. The staff in his right hand is slick with sweat. His amulet is heavy around his neck, bearing the fiery white-hot whiplash of Apolaki, warm and bright the way the Sun just is.

Then: he dances.

He twists and turns, weightless and graceful, holy and sparkling with the power of the Sun. He moves with the tide, on the tide, slow and steady with the water between his toes. He dances until he no longer can, reaching a fever pitch with sweat beading on his back and hand numb from gripping his staff too long. His robes stick to his skin.

When he stops, his chest is heaving. Dances for the gods always go this way, draining his entire being just to appease the deities because they're picky as it is, and Jihoon has learned to never give them less than they deserve.

The waves still ripple long after he's finished dancing, and when Jihoon looks, someone else is in the water.

It's Woojin, his back to Jihoon and Jihoon notices how desert-lean Woojin is, all lithe muscle and golden skin favored by the sun.

(It's no wonder Apolaki loves the desert people so much.)

He turns, as if sensing Jihoon watching him, and fixes Jihoon with a gaze so red it makes his stomach churn. The same feeling from before beats softly against his ribcage as if it wants out; Woojin is poised as if he wants to speak.

But Jihoon doesn't want to, so he leaves.

,,,

They meet again a week after that in the island's capital at night, Woojin's fists crashing and swinging into a man's face, yelling in that harsh (but so beautiful) desert tongue.

Jihoon had been praying in the temple, sacred silence broken by the chaos and screaming of the townspeople. His robes trail behind him, slithering silk muddied with how much it drags on the floor.

A crowd has gathered around Woojin, screaming for him to stop, shouting curses at him at the top of their lungs because desert boys aren't welcome here, and some of them try to push him away but he thrashes blindly and they end up with bloody noses instead. He continues to hit the man, bloodied knuckles hitting bone and cartilage; more people attempt to hold him back until they're piling over him and Jihoon is screaming for them to stop, elbowing his way into the crowd until they part. They pave a straight line for him to walk through when they realize who he is, powerful and passive and built on grace.

Everyone is still, including Woojin, who looks at him with caution and a little bit of fear. His lip is split and bleeding and there's a gash on his forehead, blood lining the side of his face. Jihoon offers him his hand when he's close enough. There's a lack of hatred and wildness in the way Woojin's gaze flits from Jihoon's hand to his face.

When Woojin takes Jihoon's hand with shaky breaths, no one says anything. 

,,,

Jihoon takes him to the temple residence, a priestling layover for when they pay homage and pray, whispers following them until Jihoon's room on the far end.

Jihoon presses delicate fingers to Woojin's face and squints, ignoring the way Woojin's hands lightly grip at his waist to steady the both of them, Jihoon kneeling and Woojin sitting cross-legged in front of him. Apart from the gash on his forehead and his swollen split lip, there are tiny cuts on Woojin's cheeks and forehead, and a bruise is blooming on his jaw. Jihoon bends down to reach for the bowl of cloth soaking in healing wine that's right beside Woojin, taking out a long tangle of fabric to wipe at the wound. Woojin hisses.

"It won't stop bleeding. Hold still," the cloth comes away red with flecks of dried blood. "I said—"

"Can't you," Woojin runs his tongue over his bottom lip. "Can't you use a, I don't know, healing spell or something, because I'd really rather not—"

"You won't die from a _gash_ on your fucking _forehead_ ," Jihoon says through his teeth. "Healing spells are only for those with lethal wounds."

"Then do something else."

"What do you want, a kiss?"

"If that's what works."

Jihoon sighs and lets his hands fall from Woojin's face. "We're not kids. Kissing boo-boos doesn't work anymore." He pauses, says, "I can leave you here, call you a heretic and that's it for you. But if you want to live, _hold still_."

It's as good as concession to Woojin because he shuts up and remains quiet for the remainder of the time, Jihoon swiping the cloth over his scrapes and cuts. He sets the cloth back into the bowl when he's done, and Woojin lets go of his waist.

"Thank you," Woojin murmurs as Jihoon stands to tuck the bowl and the bandages away. 

,,,

The next morning sees them headed for the desert lands.

Woojin didn't want any of it, hissing "no you fucking aren't" the moment Jihoon had said he's coming with. But Jihoon doesn't back down from a fight—and neither does Woojin really, right down to his desert-bred bones that refuse to lose—so he pushed and pushed with that cunning little smile of his until Woojin caved in.

The first thing Woojin says to him when they leave the residence hall: "You're a goddamn disturbance personified."

"I believe that's just another way of calling me an asshole."

"For the record, you kind of are."

Jihoon hums. "I mean, you're not wrong," he adjusts the knapsack falling from his shoulder, "But you're not right, either. I just happen to be influential."

"You got me into this mess with you, so, well, _obviously_. Just don't be surprised when you wake up one morning and I'm gone, because you can fucking bet I'm going to leave your pretty little ass behind. The entire trip takes a month at least, and you can miss me with your rituals and shit."

"Pretty, huh."

"I said what I said."

"I'm not doubting you."

Woojin doesn't bother fighting the smile that makes its way to his face and Jihoon half-smiles; it's the first time he's seen Woojin smile, the closest to a semblance of happiness Jihoon is (probably) ever going to get from him. A snaggletooth is poking out from Woojin's lips, and Jihoon figures it makes him look less bitter, makes him softer around the edges.

The smile is gone just as fast as it came, but Jihoon has already committed it to memory.

,,,

 

The town of Anitan Tabu's temple makes them lose all feeling in their fingers and toes, perpetual sleet storms in the biting cold. Jihoon is running out of powder to cast heat spells, so he resorts to holding amber, which he and Woojin pass back and forth between them. Woojin's teeth clack together, body used to desert-dry heat and the kisses of the sun. It's been a week.

Jihoon had pulled Woojin into the warmth of the temple despite Woojin's protests of "are you fucking _crazy_ they're going to stone me to death if they find out", but Jihoon told him that sometimes guests are welcome inside, only if they pay their respects through silence.

(He prayed for hours in that temple, prayed until his body was warm and his throat sore, an entire litany dedicated for the goddess who is relentless in her sting. Over and over again he would ask for protection, over and over he would beg for good weather, for her intercession in his pilgrimage.)

When they're at the layover—a lot smaller than the one at the capital, but it's enough for the both of them—Woojin places his head on Jihoon's lap. Jihoon threads his fingers through Woojin's damp hair, combing the tangles. Silence settles itself cozily in the small room; it's late and neither of them want to move.

"Be my _cerberus_ ," Jihoon says as Woojin starts to close his eyes. Woojin blinks his eyes open and his mouth sets into a frown.

"You're insane."

"I know."

"You know what it would mean for me if people find out."

"There's nothing in the rules that forbids it, though." Jihoon tugs a little too hard. A half-aborted moan escapes from Woojin's lips.

"You—don't you have one already?" Another tug. "Cut that shit out."

"I _did_ ," and it still feels too soon to say it, so he lets his hands fall from Woojin's head. "My mother was my _cerberus_ , my guardian. But she—she died three years ago and I've been alone ever since."

"I'm sorry."

"Yeah, well." He soldiers on. "My mother was a priestess, and she passed the profession to me. I think—I think she knew her time was running out, y'know? So I've been learning what she knew, reading her books and going to temples and. That's why I'm here, I guess. I'm learning more for myself too."

Jihoon inhales, shaky and nervous. "It's not that I hate doing this, it just. Gets lonely. And the mainland is shit, okay, they've been mocking us since forever just because we're some sort of afterthought to them but I don't think they'll be laughing when they find out you're with me. We'll be a threat."

"Okay." As if it's the easiest thing in the world.

"Okay?"

"You're fucking insane."

Jihoon knows Woojin is, too, because his hand finds Jihoon's and he grips it in acceptance.

,,,

He feels like he's been a priestling his entire life.

And, well, it's not wrong, because his mother had raised him that way, easing him into the beliefs of their people, _those who live by the sea will not die in it_ , for Aman Sinaya has blessed them. Rough translations of _our father, who art in heaven_ , dancing within ashes and machina grease, being covered in soot when you're done. A train of silk robes carried by maidens, his mother with her flowy hair and Mona Lisa smile, a Lakambini in her own right. Watching her create amulets, the twisting and looping of thick threads, the smell of petrifaction in the small vials she keeps on the shelves of their tiny hut.

She dressed him in white cotton robes with woven fur and beads when he was thirteen, his humble beginnings as a priestling, and gave him his own staff half a year later. She taught him how to dance—on soft soil, on rough sand, on rocks, on water, on charcoal. He trekked with her to forest, handmade pad gripped in his tiny fingers (made by her from pineapple fibers), unwavering attention to the flora and fauna she introduces to him.

She taught him about the mainland, too, how they're considered the elite and how the people on their archipelago are mere commoners, low in their rights and welfare. How the desert people are looked down upon, called the heathen race, unfavored because they're mostly bred from war, children who only know how to speak with their fists. She tells him to love all regardless of it, for Bathala will give him grace.

(He's eighteen now, five years after he's started to learn and three years after his mother had left. He has his own dictionary of flora and fauna, added on to it during his travels; he's learned more spells, more rituals, sparks of life and accustomed to the smell of death. His mother would be proud of the way he dances, the way he's taken to graceful motions instead of half-hearted clumsy ones; she would admire him for how often he prays, how he travels to understand, to be in temples breathing out accurate devotions.

Most especially, she would smile in approval of his _cerberus_ , an electric boy with golden skin and dauntlessness. She would grin in that piecemeal grin of hers, because he's loved and lost and here he is, still loving—never mind that it's been doomed from the start.)

\--

_**scorpio** _

Jihoon is inviolable in all the ways he isn't.

He takes the deities and makes them human—attainable, so close despite being so far up in the sky where they reside. Dedicated to his craft of holiness, banal in nature but with Jihoon it isn't, it's strange yet fascinating, so unlike the stories he's heard about spiritual healers and leaders.

They travel on foot for weeks, aching and tired but unafraid of anything. Woojin carves invisible notches in his head, counting each temple they visit:

Amanikable—god of hunters, whose temple is made of hard steel, the heat beating down on Woojin's back and Jihoon had prayed until sweat stung his eyes. The temple was as unforgiving as the god had been, angry and vengeful to men. They'd left as soon as Jihoon had finished, unwilling to be subject to the god's frustration.

Idiyanale—goddess of labor and good deeds. Jihoon had been heartsick, remembering his mother in the goddess, firm but gentle and feeling like home. He left the temple with puffy eyes and heavy limbs, and Woojin took him in, held him until everything stopped hurting. Until Jihoon stopped trembling like a tiny earthquake in his arms. He's never seen Jihoon this vulnerable.

Dimangan—god of good harvest, his temple surrounded by a garden, something akin to Eden, and Woojin thinks it might as well be. It's beautiful, and it fits Jihoon so well, worn robes glinting in the sun and the apples of his cheeks tinted pink. Jihoon had filled two baskets with fruits, fleshy and ripe with a sweet honey smell.

Lakapati—goddess of fertility, whom Jihoon prays to in kindness and love. Where Amanikable had been unyielding, Lakapati was easy. She loved and loved as if that's all there was to do. It filled Jihoon's lungs with buzzing and echoes of temple bells. Woojin had waited outside, twenty-five hours of calm, having fallen asleep sometime around the fifteenth hour mark. 

Mapulon—god of seasons and medicine and good health, in whose temple Jihoon had stayed for nine hours and came out holding vials filled with _something_. Woojin couldn't place the smell, but it was like grass and poison and he understood why Jihoon would call those containers petrify spells.

And he watches, as Jihoon dances in swift and practiced movements, staff in his hand while Woojin bathes (and he never misses the way Jihoon looks at him, almost as if he _wants_ him). Woojin thinks he's beautiful—Jihoon, who has only known his faith his entire life, his foundation constructed in benevolence and love; Jihoon, who he sees aches with homesickness and would do anything to go back home; Jihoon, who he hopes will only know tenderness and hope for the rest of his life—

it's something he would've prayed for, if only he believed.

,,,

Jihoon smiles with his tongue between his teeth. Woojin hates that smile; it comes with a hundred goddamn attachments that never mean well. (He _loves_ that smile.)

There's a sort of cunning to it, and it makes Woojin want to do whatever Jihoon asks (which he has, if slaughtering a pig and picking deadly berries in the middle of the night is something to go by). It pits a feeling in his gut, warm and unfamiliar.

(And he doesn't know what he's gotten himself into, with this boy that makes him feel, who tests his loyalty and he seems to pass every _fucking_ time, ardent and steady and unwavering.)

Diyan Masalanta's temple binded them together, when Jihoon had let him in and Woojin heard the goddess speaking in languages of love, her tinkling voice resonating in the empty chamber.

Jihoon had pulled Woojin close, their bodies flush against each other and Jihoon put his head on Woojin's shoulder. He muttered prayers with his eyes closed, mingling with the goddess's foreign words of affection.

It shouldn't have been a surprise to him when he felt a thread winding around his pinky and extending to his wrist, literal love lines passing through his skin. He liked himself better when Jihoon was with him, was reminded less of how his people are hated; for the first time, he feels _enough_.

They left the temple with Woojin deciding he would learn to love the way Jihoon has been taught, how it stretches on infinite and unreal, until his heart bursts and there's nothing left for him to hate.

,,,

Jihoon emerges from Dumakulem's temple and takes him by the hand, pushing the temple doors open and leading him inside, soon tangling his fingers in Woojin's hair and kissing him, all sorts of wrong prickling underneath Woojin's skin, a clash of teeth and tongue and desperation. He holds Jihoon a little too tight (a little too possessive), hands slotting themselves on Jihoon's hips. 

And it makes sense, somehow—Jihoon murmuring _I love you_ and _I'm sorry_ against his lips, and Woojin accepts them, says _It's okay_ and _I love you too_ , all while his hands work at the fabric of Jihoon's robes until his fingers press into Jihoon's skin. They're boys who don't know how to lose and don't know how to live, and they shouldn't fit so well but they do.

(It can't be helped when they're born into a world that would rather suffocate them than let them live.)

They stay that way, lips on skin, searing touches and silent promises only whispered at night right before the break of dawn. They fall asleep curled around each other as the sun rises, and Woojin realizes that it's only during this time that the universe allows them to fall together.

,,,

(It repeats for the next few temples they go to—Mayari, Tala, Hanan—Jihoon mouthing along the expanse of his skin and his hands wandering where they shouldn't. Woojin lets him, too pliant, too willing, too— _in love_ , he tells himself, and fuck if that doesn't mean something. It has to mean everything.

And, Woojin decides—cold lips but warm tongue, why should it matter—that it's all he wants for now.)

,,,

They arrive in the desert lands two and half months after they've started, and it's where Everything starts to matter:

Everyone stops and waits with bated breath when Jihoon enters the settlement with Woojin, robes trailing behind him as if he rightfully belongs there. (He does, to Woojin, but in a different time when they aren't playing a game like war.)

Woojin waits for the yelling to start, the harsh desert tongue ringing in his ears the moment he expects it to happen. He's not sure if the hand he puts out is to protect Jihoon from the chieftain or protect the chieftain from Jihoon.

"I'm his _cerberus_ ," he says. He speaks with full awareness of what it could mean, for Jihoon and for him.

His point comes across with blistering clarity, because the yelling only gets louder. He takes Jihoon's hand and walks away—fuck the goddamn chieftain and fuck this ridiculous hatred swirling in their eyes. Woojin keeps Jihoon in hiding, kissing him and marking him because it's probably the last time he'll ever get to.

Two days later, they're found.

He watches as Jihoon is taken away, thrashing against the arms curled around his biceps and begging, _begging_ for Woojin to keep him, or to follow him, or to stay.

(He's never been this selfish, not since he's met Jihoon, but he stands his ground and never leaves, never rushes to Jihoon's side because he knows that if he does, they both die. Probation for him, banishment for Jihoon—he'd rather have this than both of them gone.

It's utter betrayal, the same swirling hatred but it isn't real, at least not for him, and he figures he's doing both of them a favor.)

,,,

They're a match, half-doomed and semi-sweet, and the stars may have aligned but they're all wrong, they feel empty. It's useless to wait and to stay, and the sky is crying, Anitan Tabu and her fickle mind weeping at the loss.

Woojin knows he was never meant to have him[.](http://twitter.com/pjhluv)

**Author's Note:**

> come yell at me on my wanna one twitter acc!!! which is linked somewhere in the fic i dunno why i did that pls jus roll w it


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